Program Banishes Adoption Blues for Some Families

Anyone familiar with the staid downtown headquarters of one of Los Angeles’ most prominent law firms would hardly have recognized the place Saturday.

There were kids everywhere. Kids trailing balloons through Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher’s elegant reception area on the 47th floor of a Bunker Hill high-rise. Kids drawing pictures in glass-walled conference rooms while the grown-ups seated next to them huddled intently with lawyers and caseworkers. Kids waiting with varying degrees of patience as those grown-ups shuffled papers and filled out forms.

Whether they knew it or not, the 100-plus youngsters who filed through the law offices were pioneers, the first participants in a groundbreaking program dubbed “Adoption Saturday.”

Aimed at cutting through the red tape that can delay adoptions for two years or more in a backlogged, overburdened county system, the project is designed to let families complete all the paperwork in just one day.

Next month, several judges in the Dependency Division of the Superior Court will open their courtrooms on another Saturday to finish the job, finalizing the adoptions, clearing the youngsters from the county guardianship rolls--and realizing the dreams of the children and those trying to adopt them.

“It’s what I’ve wanted for a long time,” said 13-year-old Shawn Stephens Jr., who is being adopted by the grandmother who has cared for him since he was 4 months old.

Wearing two medals he won recently in taekwondo competitions, Shawn sat next to his grandmother, Patrice Stephens Holmes, while Gibson Dunn partner Steven Meiers, who came up with the idea for the project, tackled the paperwork.

The new process--believed to be the first of its kind in the nation--seems surprisingly simple: attorneys volunteer their time, and adoptions officials from the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services set aside a Saturday to meet with families who have begun adoptions proceedings. Representatives from the advocacy groups Alliance for Children’s Rights and Public Counsel, which helped develop the program, also were on hand to see that things went smoothly.

The one-stop approach to the paperwork ensures that snags in the procedure or unanswered questions can be dealt with on the spot, thus cutting delays and frustrations. The free legal help also eliminates another barrier--the often prohibitive costs associated with hiring an attorney to help with an adoption.

“This process can take months, but I’m highly confident that, by getting everybody together in one place, at one time, we can do [a case] in less than an hour,” Meiers told the 20 attorneys and other participants who gathered for coffee, fruit, bagels and marching orders at 8 a.m. sharp.

Judge Michael Nash, who heads the Dependency Court, said delays were robbing children of the security of having a settled family situation during crucial formative years.

“One of the shortcomings of our system . . . is the fact that we haven’t responded quickly enough in getting kids into permanent situations who are ready for permanent situations,” said Nash. He called the new program “a great thing” and joked that the lawyers donating their services to make it happen “are going to wind up giving attorneys a good name.”

Peter Digre, director of the county children’s services agency, was equally enthusiastic.

“Events like this are a fulfillment of our dreams and hopes for the young people” who are awaiting loving, permanent homes, said Digre, who brought along a placard displaying the county’s hotline to recruit new foster and adoptive parents (888-811-1121).

On Saturday, however, the moment belonged to those families who had made their commitments long ago and were eager to make them official.

Former Catholic nun and parochial schoolteacher Virginia Ruiz and her husband, Arturo, showed up with their own child and the six children, ages 2 to 11, they are trying to adopt, in tow. As with the other families who participated Saturday, the children had been cleared for adoption and only the paperwork stood in the way.

“Anything to get it done--it’s been a long process,” said Virginia Ruiz in explaining why the family drove in from their home in Rialto to spend part of a Saturday at the law offices.

Pepper and John Tolan, who lived in the San Fernando Valley community of Arleta when they began adoption proceedings for Adam, now 3, drove in from their new home in Bakersfield with the toddler and the three girls for whom they are guardians or adoptive parents.

Hearing about the new program “was a pretty pleasant surprise--we were thinking it would take us at least to the end of summer,” John Tolan said.

For Compton residents Audrey Russell and Andre Nettles, completing their long-sought adoption of her drug-addicted sister’s two children will mean the end of anxious waiting.

“I knew from the first time I saw them I wanted them,” said Russell of Orlando Martinez, 5, and Nola Jordan, 3. “I helped take care of Orlando when he was a baby, and I took Nola home from the hospital after she was born.” She said her sister told her she was unable to give up drugs and was glad that Russell wanted to add them to her own family, which includes son Derrick, 10.

“I knew I’d do a lot of sitting and waiting. But now we will get to see a permanent situation . . . and that warms me.”